This year, Activity Alliance spoke to almost 2,000 disabled and non-disabled adults to help track disabled people’s perceptions and experiences of sport and activity.
Their survey helps us all understand this audience better than we’ve ever done before and has proven the fact that a greater insight is needed if we are ever going to close the activity gap.
Some stats for you
According to our Active Lives Adult Survey, disabled people are much more likely to be inactive compared to non-disabled people and they continue to remain as one of the least active groups in society.
Before Covid-19 we saw some of the highest activity levels by disabled people ever, thanks to some great work done by partners in the sector. The pandemic destroyed those hard-fought gains.
We've also seen that taking part in activity is less common for adults with a disability or long-term health condition (47%), than those without (68%).
But there are some positives as well, as adults with a disability or long-term health condition have seen activity levels recover over the past 12 months.
Plus, after the decline seen during the pandemic, both groups have returned to November 2018-19 levels, so there are now 3.8% more adults from this group who are active than in November 2015-16 when Active Lives started.
What else do we know?
Interestingly, in the 2021 census, 18% of all disabled adults were aged 16-34, up from 9% in 2011 census. However, those aged 35+ still dominate the overall figures and drive the trends.
Disabled people over 55 are responsible for the increase in activity levels and there is long-term growth.
Our insight suggests that a key activity contributing to pre-pandemic recovery is walking for leisure.
Change is not seen across all impairment groups, however, as we have not seen increases in activity levels for people with dexterity, mental health, breathing or behavioural conditions, when compared to baseline (November 2015-16).
We can see, as always, that inactivity sharply increases after 75 and the more impairments a person has, the less likely they are to be active.
Back to the story…
We all know that the past few years have proven to be hugely difficult for everyone, but they have been significantly worse and disproportionately more impactful for disabled people.
The findings from this year’s Activity Alliance survey support this.
We’ve learned that:
- the cost-of-living crisis is reducing the chance of being active
- the levels of loneliness felt among disabled people are increasing but that being active could help them feel less lonely
- disabled people are less likely to have positive attitudes and tend to see less improvement in their view of things, which considerably affects their mental health and wellbeing.
Crucially, we also now know there is still an ongoing unmet need: disabled people were more likely to say they wanted to be more active compared to non-disabled people (77% vs 54%).
This 'activity gap' has remained consistent with previous years.
What can the sector do?
Activity Alliance’s report helpfully details some actions that we, in the sector, can take to support disabled people, which are based around the seven themes explored in the survey.
We also need to think about what we might put in place to combat the major challenges identified around cost of living and tackling loneliness.
And so it urges leaders and organisations to look at what changes they can make - both short and long term - and explores the ways we can build on some of the great practice already seen in the sector.
One important element to bear in mind is that too often the people with the most to gain from being active are the least able to take part.
That’s why we’re on a mission to address this injustice and work with an array of partners to ensure disabled people are heard, understood and included.
We have seen great progress recently from organisations who are determined to make a difference for disabled people’s inclusion in sport and activity.
Therefore, we need to harness that enthusiasm and understand that together we all have a role to play to continuously shape and adapt our activity offers to disabled people.
Only by working together, collaboratively and collectively, will we ever be able to effectively unite the movement and close the disability activity gap.
